A Little Perspective Book Two
by Bigi
Summary: This multi-perspective piece looks at the week following Season 1 and the week prior to Season 2. It focuses on the perspectives of 8 characters, Tony Almeida, Sherry Palmer, Ryan Chappelle, Jack Bauer, Kim Bauer, David Palmer, Nina Myers and George Mason
1. Chapter 1 Tony Almeida

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the second book in a multi-chapter series that will span all three seasons.

This book will detail the week after day one (or the first season) and the week before day two (or the second season). The first half, which will deal with the aftermath of day one, will be told through the perspective of Tony Almeida, Sherry Palmer, Ryan Chappelle and Jack Bauer. The second half, which will lead up to day two, will be told through the perspective of Kim Bauer, David Palmer, Nina Myers and George Mason.

I will be basing my stories off facts given in the show and in the book, "Findings at CTU" by Marc Cerasini. These stories will be based in canon for the most part aside from some things I add to fill out the characters' backgrounds.

Biased, though I may be, but I feel the story is more coherent and more cohesive if all perspective pieces are read.

Finally, I want to give a big thanks to my beta, Catch22Girl for being such a huge help to me.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own these characters or "24".  
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Wednesday

March 6, 2002

Los Angeles, California

Slowly, Tony leaned back into the leather upholstery of the cab. His entire body felt like it was made out of lead. The effects of having been awake for over forty hours had hit him as soon as he entered the taxi and every movement now was an effort. He had wanted to take his car home but Mason had pointed out that Tony was in no position to drive, he could barely see straight.

Tony looked down at the keys he still had in his hand. He remembered Saturday night coming home from his date with Nina. They had come back to his apartment and she had kissed his neck and giggled as he fumbled with his keys. She had been lying to him -- to all of them -- the whole time.

How much of it was a lie? He had wondered that when they first discovered the truth about Jamey. Here was a woman he worked with every day, he was friends with her and she had been selling them out. She was better friends with Jack than she was with him and she had helped destroy his life. Richard Walsh, a man she called her mentor, was dead because of her and the people she had helped. Tony had been the one to tell her and he wondered later if Jamey had really cared or if it had been an act.

Did Nina ever care? Was it all an act? In those first few moments Tony had wanted to believe that Nina was innocent. Even though his own gut instinct was telling him differently. He couldn't believe that Nina was a traitor, that she had been lying every time she opened her mouth. He wasn't ready to accept that everything he had known about her was a lie.

When Mason asked him where Nina was Tony said he didn't know and asked why. The District Director just walked off and started yelling at the security guards so Tony had followed him into the parking garage. There they found Jack holding Nina by the neck, a gun pointed at her head. It was surreal. Tony didn't think that Jack would kill her yet he was still terrified for Nina. He honestly didn't know what to expect anymore. Tony just stood silently praying as Mason tried to talk Jack down.

While Mason was putting Nina in custody he found Jack's daughter Kim wandering the floor. She asked him where her parents were and Tony told her to wait in one of the offices and he would go find them. Before he could leave to do that a group of medics rushed down the hall. He remembered then that Teri had gone down that hall looking for Nina.

He could still hear Kim's crying.

It was a chilling sound to hear someone cry that way. It was like their soul was being torn from them. Tony had heard cries like that only once before. He had been in the service at the time, stationed in Saudi Arabia. A truck bomb had detonated near the base killing dozens of people -- soldiers and civilians alike. He remembered one Saudi woman, covered in blood, holding her young son's body in her lap and crying that primal sound. Over and over she had wailed "Eelah? Eelah?"

He looked out the window at the as the orange glow of the streetlights passed by the cab. "I don't know why." Tony whispered to himself.

He wanted to know why she had done it, why would she betray her country? Nina had said she worked for someone else, someone other than the Drazens. If she wasn't motivated by revenge, he thought, than why? He wanted to understand, to make sense of what had happened.

He tried thinking back to conversations they had, thinking of signs he might have missed. Aside from Nina having few close personal relationships -- a trait not uncommon in his line of work -- he couldn't think of anything that he should have noticed. He remembered talking to her about current events, politics, even the upcoming presidential election. She was very knowledgeable about the subjects even if not particularly passionate. Yet, Nina lacked the bland disinterest one would expect from a political terrorist.

Jamey had sold out her country for three hundred thousand dollars. Did Nina have a price as well?

He remembered comforting Nina when she seemed worried that she wasn't doing enough to help Jack's wife and daughter. He felt anger push through the tired, foggy haze of his mind as he recalled how worried she had seemed and how he had bought her act so completely.

He had been so easy to fool. Tony had worried over her, protected her and worst he had believed her. Not once had he questioned her. Earlier, when they had found Jamey dead he knew Nina had left down that same hall not ten minutes before but he didn't think anything of it. Later he saw her disappear, right when the shit was hitting the fan, and he still hadn't even wondered where she was going. Tony had spent a good portion of the day questioning Jack but not Nina. Never her.

He was such a fool. He could have stopped her. He could have gone after Nina, followed her down the corridor, asked her what she was doing. Tony had been by her side for almost the entire day, he should have paid more attention to what she was doing. He could have done something more. So many people had died today and if he had just done something differently, anything, he could have stopped her. Tony closed his eyes, feeling more tired now than before.

He just needed to get home and sleep, not to think about this. The same thought still resonated in his mind -- she betrayed me. She betrayed everyone.


	2. Chapter 2 Sherry Palmer

Friday  
March 8, 2002  
Edgewater, Maryland  
  
Sherry walked down the steps onto the dock. After spending most of the day inside, not wanting to be seen by the neighbors, she needed to get out of the house. It was a little before midnight now and the marina was quiet save for the sound of the waves rocking a boat tied nearby. Sherry wrapped her sweater around her and stared out at the vast blackness beyond the edge of the dock.  
  
She couldn't believe David would betray her like this.  
  
When he told her that she wasn't fit to be First Lady, that she had forgotten how to be a friend and a wife, Sherry assumed he was blowing off steam. David was always more emotional than he should be. After everything they had been through that day and the lack of sleep it was understandable that he would he would be upset. She thought that after some rest he would realize his mistake and call her.  
  
This afternoon she received a phone call from Nicole. She found out from her daughter that David considered this time apart a separation. The prelude to their divorce.  
  
He must be a fool if he thought he could toss her aside like this.  
  
After she heard that she was livid and tried calling David who was unreachable. He was on the campaign trail. He was only fooling himself if he thought he had a snowball's chance in Hell of winning. He couldn't survive without her. She had made him what he was, when no else believed in him Sherry had been there for him. She had given up everything for him. Sherry had given him everything she had. She'd given him her love, her intelligence, her strength, her determination, her body had carried his children. She had given him thirty years of her life and he thought he could just walk away from her.  
  
Sherry knew she had made mistakes, she was willing to admit that. She knew using Patty and trying to entrap David was wrong. She understood that he was upset that she had kept the truth about Keith a secret. She should have been more supportive when he wanted to go public with the truth. She should never have gone to the press after the bomb exploded.  
  
However, David had to understand though that everything she had done had been for him. Sherry had only been trying to protect him and the life they had tried to build together. She could admit that she had gone too far but he had to realize that she only had his interests at heart. Sherry was willing to give him the space he wanted but David had to realize that he needed her.  
  
He'd never make it to the White House without her.  
  
Sherry felt a shudder pass through her body as the anger and hurt bubbled up inside.  
  
How dare he get on his high horse and tell her she had forgotten how to be a wife! Sherry knew that using Patty to seduce her husband was...extreme but she would never have attempted it if she didn't think it would work. Did he think she was stupid, did he think she hadn't seen what was going on between them? There was an attraction there and it wasn't only from Patty's side. She had watched for months as her husband had basked in the attention Patty gave him, he had soaked up every compliment. She had seen the way David's eyes would light up around Patty and the admiring glances he gave the younger woman when he thought no one saw.  
  
Sherry had noticed everything.  
  
David had a lot of nerve doing this to her, brushing her aside and insulting her on top of it. She had forgotten what it meant to be a mother, had she?  
  
While he had been off building his career she had been the one taking care of their children. When that whole business with Lyle Gibson happened it was she who had spent time with Nicole. Oh sure David had been there in the beginning but in a few weeks, after things had settled down a bit, he was back at work. Nicole, always so eager to please them, told him she was fine. David, of course had believed her because it was what he wanted to hear -- that his happy little family was happy again.  
  
But it was Sherry, not her husband, who had spent time with Nicole for the next several months. She had gone to therapy with Nicole and stayed up nights with her daughter when she was having problems sleeping.  
  
It was a similar story with Keith. David had been content to believe that everything was fine and to never look below the surface. Just as with Nicole he had thought therapy would fix all of Keith's problems and had never seen how much their son was hurting. It was her who had taken the steps to protect her son not David.  
  
No, David had been content to throw her son to the wolves. He was so wrapped up in his ideals it didn't matter if his own son was hurt in the process. He had said to her that the only thing that mattered was the truth -- not the election. How could he have honestly believed that? Sherry knew her husband was every bit as ambitious as she was whether he admitted it or not. If he wasn't as wrapped up in his image and in winning his campaign he would have allowed Kingsley to release the story but instead he decided to play a riskier game and gamble with their son's future.  
  
David was just lucky that the public had been forgiving.  
  
But her husband, arrogant as always, still continued playing games. Despite nearly being killed earlier in the day he had insisted upon going after the lunatic agent who had almost murdered him. Worse, David had helped the man! Minutes after the agent had brought some sort of explosive device into their hotel, after nearly killing David a second time, he was demanding that her husband help him. While Sherry hadn't intended to be cruel to the man she couldn't believe her husband was willing to help him. They didn't even have proof that he was telling the truth and yet David was willing to risk everything that they had worked for by valuing the word of a stranger over common sense.  
  
It was almost funny that her husband thought he could still win. He was always naive but this was downright delusional. Even now, his poll numbers had dipped a bit and once word got out that "family man" David Palmer was getting a divorce it would be over for him. The Democratic Party wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole.  
  
He had to come back to her, he had to. He had to know that what she had done was in their best interests, that she had always put him first. He couldn't make it without her, he needed her.  
  
She had to make David understand, he was only preparing himself for a disaster without her by his side.


	3. Chapter 3 Ryan Chappelle

Sunday  
March 10, 2002  
Los Angeles, California  
  
Ryan sat on the cement steps and gave a curt nod as one of the agents walked past him to the parking lot. After lightly tapping the lit cigarette in his hand, Ryan watched as the ashes floated away in the darkness. He had promised Vicky that he was going to give up smoking for Lent and he had almost made it too. The disaster that was the past few days, however, had left him smoking like a chimney. Not that his wife would know anytime soon that he had started smoking again, Ryan had barely even been home in the past few days. He had stopped by the house this morning to change and was able to spend a few minutes with his wife and daughter before hurrying back to work.  
  
He had spent the majority of the past four days interrogating Nina Myers. The Justice Department had given them ninety-six hours to try and find out more about who she was working for before they took her into custody. From the moment Myers had been apprehended he had been put in charge of the interrogation.  
  
Of course, interrogation was really a euphemism for what had transpired these past few days.  
  
Myers wasn't the first suspect he had tortured, unlikely that she'd be the last. He had conducted a couple dozen interrogations over the course of his career and he remembered every single one. The first time was during one of his early operations in Honduras where Ryan had been asked by the Team Leader to step-in during the last minute and conduct the interrogation.  
  
Afterwards, one of the operation's senior officers had praised Ryan for the job he did and told him he would put in a recommendation with Washington that Ryan be given more assignments like this. He said Ryan was a "natural" for this kind of work. Ryan remembered thinking what a strange compliment that was and his confusion was evident to his superior who then asked him if something was wrong. Rather than admit the truth and risk upsetting the senior officer Ryan admitted that he was still a little rattled by the whole experience. His superior gave him a friendly pat on the arm and told him that in time it would get easier.  
  
Ryan took a final drag from his cigarette before flicking it on the ground.  
  
Interrogating Myers had been useless. She had given them all her information on the Drazen operation but nothing more. Nothing but that same bored, blank look.  
  
Her ability to hold out for so long was worrisome, it seemed to confirm his worst suspicion that she wasn't an agent who had been turned but a deep-cover mole who had been planted within the agency. Ryan had never heard of such a spy who had lasted as long as Myers had being found in an American intelligence agency but he knew it was possible. More frightening still was the possibility that she may have had some help from someone higher-up, that they were still vulnerable.  
  
Not that the little snake would ever tell.  
  
Secret cabals and shadow governments, it was like every anti-government crackpot's wet dream. The kind of conspiracy that would be found in some pulp spy novel.  
  
He hated conspiracy theories.  
  
Every phone call he got that day was more incredible than the one that preceded it. A conspiracy to kill a presidential candidate, a network of moles working in CTU, personal vendettas that had compromised various government agencies, secret DOD prisons -- it was too much believe. The whole thing was just one chaotic, incomprehensible mess.  
  
He had been so focused with dealing with each individual problem and trying to restore some semblance of order that he hadn't even seen the bigger picture. Ryan hadn't believed Bauer when he insisted that the Drazens were going to continue with their plan -- it didn't make any sense. Their plan had failed spectacularly on both fronts, the logical thing for the Drazens to do would be to leave the country. Between failing to produce any concrete resolution to the days events and having Senator Palmer interfere in agency business and go over his head about Bauer, Ryan became fed up and left. At the time, he thought the worst was over and Alberta could clean up at CTU while he faced their bosses at Division.  
  
He never should have left CTU: LA that day.  
  
Logically, he knew there was little he could have done to help things. There probably wasn't much he would have done differently than George, but it still bothered him.  
  
Ryan hated the thought of going to his superiors empty-handed. Tuesday had been a cock-up from start to finish and he knew they were looking for someone to blame. Ryan had hoped to have Nina Myers' confession to present to them Monday morning but instead he needed to think about what he would say in his final reports to them.  
  
His report was half-written and so far he had decided to go for the vague but still plausible "miscommunication" track for his spin on what went wrong that day but there was time to change that if necessary. While he hadn't spent much time really thinking about it, in some part of his mind he had already sized up all the viable candidates and knew who his best choices would-be for a scapegoat.  
  
Ryan picked up the two folders that he had set on the step and began flipping through the top one.  
  
Alberta and George had gotten their reports in immediately and -- as if in testament to his miscommunication spin -- not only had they chosen the most ridiculous scapegoats possible but they hadn't even picked the same one!  
  
For reasons that eluded him, Alberta had settled on Almeida as her fall guy. Despite his attitude problems Almeida had been helpful to their investigation, loyal to Jack and yet still managed to follow procedure. She was probably lucky that George had decided to make an even bigger ass out of himself by choosing Jack as a scapegoat. He had no idea what was going on with George. His report was little more than a series of scathing remarks about Bauer's actions, he barely even tried to hide his contempt for the man.  
  
The funny thing about the whole situation was that either George or Alberta would make an ideal scapegoat. They had both made the kind of crucial mistakes that if Ryan chose one of them as his fall guy their career would be over. Alberta's mishandling of the Hanlin situation at the plaza was going to hurt her -- although Ryan knew he shared some of the blame for allowing someone with no field experience call the shots for that operation. She might bounce back, Alberta was young and had connections, but she would never have the kind of career with CTU that she wanted. George, was in an even more precarious position. He had spent the most time at CTU that day out of the three of them and because of that George was seen as bearing most of the responsibility for what happened. Pinning the blame on him would end George's career with CTU.  
  
What was really going to hurt George was Saugus - he still didn't understand what had happened there. Why would George risk his career to help out someone he tried to ruin in his reports?  
  
When the DOD had called him about Saugus he barely had time to digest the whole story before he had to call George and tell him to leave Jack behind. Ryan had tried, then, not to focus on what that meant but he knew exactly what he was doing. He had lingered by the phone for a few moments after the call had ended and he thought about calling George back and telling him to send some teams in for Bauer.  
  
But in the end he had chickened out.  
  
Ryan realized, not for the first time that his senior officer had been wrong -- these things never got easier, not really. He just had become better at accepting it. 


	4. Chapter 4 Jack Bauer

Tuesday

March 12, 2002

Santa Monica, California

Jack took shallow breaths and waited, wondering if the dry heaves would continue. The taste of bile still lingered in his mouth and his legs were trembling. Too weak to kneel any longer, he sunk to thefloor. He laid his head on the ground and found the cold tile soothing against his clammy skin.

The light coming from the hallway bothered him. He closed his eyes and tried to block it out. The only sounds were his own labored breathing and the click of his watch.

'Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone'. Words from the same poem had been circling in his mind all week. 'Silence the pianos and with muffled drums / Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come'.

He opened his eyes and looked across the hallway into his bedroom. The room was partially-illuminated. With the little light there was, Jack could make out the clothes, dresser drawers and other items scattered across the room.

He'd been looking for something. Jack couldn't remember what, he wasn't really sure if he'd ever known. He had gone into the bedroom and started opening the drawers, there he'd seen all of her clothes. Clothes she'd worn, clothes she'd never wear again.

Jack had started taking the clothes out, taking the whole drawer out and emptying each onto the floor. His sister was coming over later in the week to help him get the house in order. She had mentioned giving Teri's things to charity. Of course, Teri wouldn't need them anymore.

But he couldn't give them away. The were her clothes, they belonged to Teri. Jack couldn't throw out her things.

He had left the clothes on the floor and gone into the closet. There, in the back, was a safe where he kept a gun. His other gun had been taken from him at work. He hadn't thought much about what he was doing at that moment but the idea had been in his mind since he held Teri's body in his arms. Jack couldn't continue like this, he didn't want to, he didn't deserve to. He should have been able to prevent it, he should have been there to save Teri. He should never have trusted anyone at CTU to protect her. They didn't care what had happened to him or to his family.

Jack's hand clenched into a fist and he felt his shoulders tighten. He should have killed Nina when he had the gun on her.

The way it felt to have his hand around her neck and the gun so close, his finger ready to pull the trigger; those were the thoughts that pushed him towards the safe. His right hand clenched and unclenched by his side as he walked, it had felt empty.

But the gun wasn't there tonight.

It was probably his dad's doing. His parents had been here earlier to check in on him and to get the rest of Kim's things. His dad had asked him what he wanted to do about Kim, Jack didn't remember the answer he gave. Maybe he hadn't responded at all. His dad had stood up, gave him a kiss on the head – the last time he had done that was when Jack was a kid - and left the room. He could have taken the gun then.

Jack had opened the safe and found it was empty.

At first he felt ashamed. He almost expected to turn around and see his father waiting behind him.

Then he had felt sick. Jack realized with anxious horror that this was the rest of his life. Teri was gone, this was real and she wasn't coming back. Right now, there was no escape.

He couldn't survive a week without her, he was expected to survive forty or fifty years? Jack honestly couldn't remember his life before he'd known Teri, they'd been together so long. She'd always been a presence in his life even when they weren't together.

How was he supposed to live the rest of his life when she'd been his life?

His stomach clenched and his heart beat a little faster. Jack closed his eyes and tried to take a deep breath.

'She was my North, my South, my East and West / My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song / I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong'.

_Poem used is W.H. Auden's, "Funeral Blues"._


End file.
